Nowadays in United States alone a vehicle is stolen every 19 seconds. Losses from car theft are costing $8 billion a year nationally. Autotheft is a growing problem, affecting both urban and rural communities, as well as all vehicle makes and models.
Heretofore devices of various types have been proposed and introduced in market for preventing the car theft. These devices roughly can be classified as alarms that produces a sound signal, ignition cut-off switches that prevents the car from being started unless the switch is tripped, and steering wheel locking bars that prevent the wheel from turning.
The last group of devices find a very wide application because of simplicity of the use and low cost of the device itself.
One such steering wheel locking bar-type device is produced by Winner International Corporation, USA under the trademark "Club". Unfortunately, none of these devices can guarantee that the vehicle will not be stolen. This is because, even though the auxiliary bars of the antitheft device is difficult to cut, the steering wheel itself is a weak link in the protection system. In other words, while many of the known steering wheel locking bars are relatively indestructible, the steering wheel is not. As a result, an automobile to be protected is actually subject to theft by the simple expedient of cutting through the plastic covered steering wheel rim and removing the protection bar via the cut. The automobile is then steerable and the steering wheel may actually have suffered only relatively minor damage and may be used as it is or with a piece of tape applied over the cut in order to hold the adjacent cut edges of the rim in circular alignment.
The above problem was completely solved by means of an antitheft locking device disclosed by the applicant in his earlier patent application Ser. No. 519715 filed on Aug. 28, 1995 for which a decision to grant a patent was made.
This antitheft locking device has a steering wheel and an engaging member with an end wall covering the steering wheel over its part that includes at least two ribs of the steering wheel. A peripheral wall of the device extends over at least a part of the outer periphery of the steering wheel rim. The device also has a pair of spaced stops protruding from the end wall in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the steering wheel and engageable with the lateral surface ribs. A stop member which protrudes from the periphery of the rim engaging portion is engageable with the dashboard of the vehicle or with any other stationary part of the vehicle body for preventing rotation of the steering wheel. The device is locked in a fixed position by means of a special locking mechanism.
A main distinction of the aforementioned earlier Applicant's device consists in that the durable metal rim-engaging portion of the device which is hard to cut by conventional tools covers a part of the rim periphery and at least two ribs over the entire length of these ribs including the points of connection of the ribs to the rim and steering wheel hub. This means, that even though a thief may cut the portions of the rim not protected by the device, the vehicle still remain non-drivable. This because the device still cannot be removed from the remaining portion of the steering wheel and thus the protection function of the device remains intact.
Although the aforementioned device is efficient and reliable in operation, it is heavier, more expensive than the conventional bar-type antitheft devices, and is inconvenient for storage and handling because of large dimensions and heavy weight.